1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus such as an ink jet-type printer and a maintenance method of the same liquid ejecting apparatus.
2. Related Art
Hitherto, an ink jet-type printer has been known as a type of liquid ejecting apparatus, which ejects a liquid from a nozzle of a liquid ejecting head onto a target such as paper so as to print an image and the like. In the aforementioned printers, there is a printer provided with a wiper unit (cleaning mechanism) that removes an unnecessary ink which adheres to a nozzle forming surface of the liquid ejecting head in order to preferably maintain a liquid ejection characteristic of the liquid ejecting head (for example, JP-A-2001-260368).
The wiper unit carries out wiping in which a wiping member (fabric tape) that is capable of absorbing an ink slides on the nozzle forming surface of the liquid ejecting head, thereby wiping out the ink from the nozzle forming surface.
Incidentally, a wiping member in a wiper unit is made of a fabric woven from polyester fibers and the like, and is capable of absorbing an ink by confining the ink in a gap between the fabrics.
Therefore, when wiping is carried out on a nozzle forming surface where a large amount of ink adheres and during the wiping, there is a possibility that a slide section of the wiping member which slides on the nozzle forming surface may be in a state where the ink is absorbed to the saturation point. In this case, the slide section of the wiping member which is in the state where the ink is absorbed to the saturation point slides on the nozzle forming surface of a liquid ejecting head, and the slide section pushes the ink or a foreign substance in the ink that adheres to the nozzle forming surface into a nozzle, thereby causing a disadvantage in maintaining an ink ejection characteristic in a favorable manner.
The above-described circumstance is generally common in liquid ejecting apparatuses that carry out a maintenance of wiping out a liquid which adheres to the nozzle forming surface where the nozzle is formed using a wiping member that is capable of absorbing the liquid.